Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Melbourne metro event at Woodlands Park. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to show my face at an orienteering event today in light of last night's developments, but fronted up anyway (as did plenty of others - it was the best turnout I can remember for a Melbourne metro Sunday event).

As would be expected after a long run yesterday, felt pretty sluggish for a lot of it, although better in the second half. Sometimes had trouble pinpointing controls as sometimes happens in flattish terrain, but no significant time losses.

It's a good area to have close to Melbourne - a decent amount of bush mixed with semi-open - and will be a great resource for events of this type. There were also a few small granite features around. The SE corner of the map (which we didn't go to) has rather more of them and, if it isn't too constrained by fences, might make a decent sprint area.

Doing a long run on a Saturday is a little unusual for me - this time it was mainly because the otherwise minor metro event tomorrow is on an area I haven't run on before so I thought it would be nice to run it. The timing does have the advantage of getting the hardest work for the weekend out of the way early on the weekend - a little bit like what happens when your football team wins on Friday night.

The first 40 minutes were pretty slow, but hit an increasingly good rhythm after that, traversing leafy eastern suburbs which are somewhat less leafy than they were this time last week. Enough hills to keep me honest without ever being extreme; had the confidence to finish across the steep bits at the west end of Bulleen. Quads fatigued a little bit which is a slight concern for next week as they've given me trouble in the later stages of my two previous marathons, but nothing too serious, and I finished feeling as if I had plenty left for the extra 35 or 40 minutes I'll be doing next Sunday. Did 4.3 minutes/km over the second half, which is only a little slower than my likely marathon pace, without ever feeling stressed. A good confidence-booster on the whole.

I'm starting to get a bit annoyed by the talk of an "unprecedented" wind event. Wednesday's peak gusts ranked 14th in 25 years at Moorabbin and 27th in 38 years at Tullamarine (the Melbourne CBD wind observations are useless), although severe wind events have been conspicuous by their absence in the last 10 years. As far as I can tell the only thing unprecedented about this event is the extent to which it has exposed the impact of maintenance and emergency-response cost-cutting in a privatised electricity industry.

There was a party last night hosted by the 'Age's environment reporter (to celebrate her getting a publisher for a book she's writing) - mostly journos but a few of us climate types were there. Our host was worried that she'd over-ordered on the pizza. I replied that she obviously didn't know me as well as she thought she did :-)

Felt really good this morning and was able to put it into a solid session - got into a nice rhythm quickly. Pity a day like this was wasted on a recovery session. The end of daylight saving must be nigh - still pitch-black when I went into Richmond pool at 7.10.

The travel issue I mentioned has been resolved, at a saving to the world's taxpayers of $900 or thereabouts. I'm also relieved that I'll only have been travelling for 30 hours by the time I get to the Tasmanian NOL races instead of 34 :-)

Our building has screens which display some news headlines. Today's was that Paris Hilton had lost some brain cells after a fall in Prague. I didn't realise that there were any there to lose (and I'm mystified as to why this constitutes "news").

Longest run I've done for a few weeks - this and Saturday are mainly about giving me some more confidence for the marathon. Doing the local ALP newsletter drop for a lot of it. A run which often threatened to become very good but never quite did, still quite nice at times, and handled the numerous hills reasonably well. Also managed to do a pretty long run without ever being more than about 4km from home.

Plenty of evidence of yesterday's carnage around, with many trees down (and one lot of power lines). Compared to many the effects on me were pretty minimal - I actually got home earlier than planned (I was aiming for the 7.02 train, and actually got the 6.43 running 17 minutes late), and only one power outage longer than a few minutes (and that was after I'd already gone to bed, so its only impact was that I used my watch alarm rather than my radio one, having set it as a back-up in anticipation).

I'm also wondering just how many thousand dollars I could have saved various taxpayers if the procedure for booking overseas trips was 'do it yourself and send us the bill'. I'm sorting out flights for my trip to Holland in May and our travel agents are wanting to send me from Singapore to Amsterdam via Heathrow at a cost $1300 greater than that which you can get the direct option for via the KLM website. Would you pay $1300 extra for the privilege of (a) several hours extra in the air and (b) having an excellent chance of having your luggage disappear into the Heathrow black hole? I've asked them to have another look (and get the impression they're not used to people asking questions). The trip is funded by the World Meteorological Organization so at least it's (mostly) some other country's taxes which are being wasted in this case.

Main highlight of this run was a stunning red sky at sunrise. I don't think there are too many shepherds left in Melbourne these days, but if there are any they can consider themselves warned (that's if they hadn't already read the sheep weather alert posted on our website yesterday).

The run itself was pretty ho-hum, although picked up a bit towards the end.

C • Clouds 4

Going to/from the Tan. Knew that it was going to be interesting when I saw a building worker chasing his helmet down the street outside our building.

First hit-out on the Tan this year. Didn't have high expectations and was expecting something in the 13.30-13.40 range. Started a bit slowly as everyone else gunned the start in a big way, but ran the hill well and a good last kilometre. Almost managed the rare feat of outsprinting someone but he got me back on the line.

It was pretty wild and woolly out there (peak gusts on the Bay at last report 117 km/h, although lower than that in sheltered areas). There was a lot of small debris on the track and a couple of fallen trees (which the runners coped with better than I thought they might), and quite a bit of stuff was still coming down - one large tree across the road as we were going past the Shrine. I think the effect on times was quite modest, as the section between 2.5 and 3.3 k where we were going directly into the wind is quite sheltered, but the crosswinds in the more open areas were fierce. Might have been close to or just under 13.30 on a calmer day, but the 13.15 I'd be happy with is still some distance away.

Km splits: 3.35, 3.39 (uphill), 3.36 (into wind), 3.31.

First speed session after the Easter week of racing. Didn't expect it to be a particularly quick session and it wasn't - fastest loop 9.22 - but felt quite reasonable. A bit of Achilles soreness early on, but that eased quickly. A pretty crisp morning on the Yarra flats - autumn is definitely with us (if tomorrow's forecast is correct one could be forgiven for thinking winter will be with us).

There was a film shoot setting up at the Heidelberg Oval - don't know what is being filmed. A couple of years ago the oval was used to set up a replica of an American county fair for "Charlotte's Web", apparently authentic in all respects except that they neglected to clear the scoreboard which said 'West Heidelberg 18 16 124 Visitors 9 9 63'. Not having seen the movie I don't know if the scoreboard put in an appearance in it.

C • toyota footy ad? 2

A pretty ordinary run off rather limited sleep - didn't get home last night until midnight (although did have the rare luxury of sleeping quite a bit in the car). Felt sluggish throughout.

Melbourne has done a reasonable job of shifting from summer to winter in the time I've been gone, meaning that the Fitzroy pool is now a place for the hard-core. Felt surprisingly good swimming (especially given the dismal run that preceded it) and got into quite a nice rhythm in the second half.